Re: A newbie's Hello world!
- From: onehappymadman@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 23 Dec 2005 13:17:13 -0800
Robert wrote:
> Hi there,
> I'm Robert, I'm a newbie to the world of chemistry and to this
> newsgroup. I recently decided to start a new hobby in chemistry. I
> always liked chemistry at school and almost became a chemist once, only
> if I did not fail my science courses. I wasn't very good a school in
> science.
>
> I just got myself a new job and I will have extra money to spend on
> this expensive hobby. I already read the Organic Chem Lab Survival
> Manual, and I'm planning on buying other books.
>
> But as you may understand, reading books isn't what changes the
> newbie from being a newbie. I will certainly have questions and I was
> wondering what would be the best place to ask for security concerns as
> well as to discuss my experiment's plans.
>
> I always thought chemistry couldn't not be a hobby, that a hobby
> chemist would be flagged right away as a drug manufacturer, but I just
> realized it's not the case. I live in Canada, QC and I'm interested to
> know if there are any laws or regulations regarding the practice of
> hobby chemistry in my area.
>
> Ok, now I'm sure you all want to know if the newbie will make the
> mistake of blowing himself up on the first experiment! Well... I don't
> think so, I usually take a lot of precaution, and try to get to know
> perfectly all the substances I will be dealing with. One thing that I
> will not be able to have (unless you guys have a trick) is a flow hood,
> and that is very sad since I won't be able to do anything with most
> solvents. I'll stick with ethanol and other not too dangerous ones.
>
> Again, my main concern is to have fun and to discover, to gain
> experience and I will be primarily focused on security.
>
> Before I begin anything (I don't have any equipment yet) I was
> thinking on buying more books on the general procedures of chemistry.
> My main interest now is to be able to extract a compound from a natural
> source (like caffeine from cafe), isolate and purify it, then to be able
> to verify its purity or to prove I have isolated the right compound
> (would chromatography help here or is there any other techniques that
> work better?)
>
> As a last note, I will be ready to spend thousands on this hobby, so
> I will probably get a hand on a column chromatograph or maybe some other
> special equipment.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Robert
Now that you've got a job and are all grown up, why don't you take one
night class in chemistry at the local junior college? Not only will
you gain knowledge of basic concepts, but you can also ask the
professor what texts are good, you'll learn good lab safety techniques
(at least, How Not to Get Glass Chips in Your Eyes and How Not to Set
Your House on Fire).
You'll also probably find new and interesting reactions to try, that
you never would have thought of otherwise.
I noticed you mentioned you want to purify caffeine. Be very careful
here, especially if you intend to eat your product. Notice that many
of the cheaper chemicals are cheap because they're not very pure. You
might get poisonous by-products from chemicals you buy if you don't
specify food-grade chemicals. Off the top of my head, one example is
sodium hydroxide (NaOH) - if I remember correctly, one method of
manufacture involves mercury electrodes, so this NaOH would have traces
of mercury present. Very Bad. And then there's ethanol made from
distillation with benzene...
If you're ready to spend thousands of $$$ on this hobby, do you plan on
turning it into a commercial venture? With the right training, you
could open up shop as an analytical chemistry lab. Collect samples
from various companies who want to know what's in their samples / water
/ etc, and charge them $100 or so per sample...
Good luck. And, try not to hurt yourself or your loved ones.
.
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